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I think it does have value, but a few things that struck me as "must dos": - make it better for mobile, since that's likely the platform I'll use in a strange
by tg3 15y ago
I think it does have value, but a few things that struck me as "must dos":
- make it better for mobile, since that's likely the platform I'll use in a strange city. Maybe this is part of the graphic design piece that you were talking about.
- make it easier to see ALL the breweries/beers near me. I would think that would be the main page instead of one at a time (I hate refreshing the page)
If this project was dropped in my lap, I would do this:
- work on UX above all else (and before data entry). Make it easy and enjoyable to see what breweries are near me and to add breweries and beers.
- focus on a single geographic area for data entry. I'm in Chicago, so I would make this a killer website to visit if you're visiting Chicago. Promote it heavily in Chicago (Facebook ads is super targeted and great for something like this, you can target beer drinkers ages 21 - 40 in Chicago only, and might even be able to narrow it further).
- Let users add content for additional cities if it becomes popular in your homebase. Remember, we already made it really easy to do that in step 1.
- I might even look into signing up bars to be listed on the site as carrying a particular beer/brewery when a user is near their location. In exchange they put up your flyer. Free promotion if the functionality is there.
I think there is definitely value here, but I would devote some serious time to improving UX before data entry. As others have said, there are ways around doing the data entry, but not too many ways around good user design.
- dholowiski 15y agoThanks for the feedback. Mobile is a work in progress. Actually I had a working mobile version but it was not very good so I disabled it. What do you mean, make it easy to see all the breweries near me? It should automatically show you all the breweries in a certain range. Do you mean that you had to increase the range, and didn't like the refresh - and that instead of refreshing I should do it via ajax? Users can actually add beers, breweries. Since you're the second person to mention that, clearly I need to make it more obvious and easier. I did focus on adding California and New York first, they are very complete. Now I'm thinking I need to focus on my local area, and physically go to the breweries to get their help promoting the site, as you mentioned. Great feedback. Up until now I have been focusing on data entry, but I do see the need for UX improvement. I've actually done a couple of Stumble Upon campaigns, they're at least as targeted as Facebook ads, and very cheap. I might have to branch out but it seems a bit crazy paying for visitors when I'm not actually making money on the site.
- chrisabruce 15y agoMeant Foodspotting instead of Spotify.
- tg3 15y agoSorry for getting back to you so late. What I meant by making it easy to see the breweries near me is, instead of showing me a map with arrows on it, it would be more useful (for me at least), to give me a list of breweries/beers within a certain, reasonable radius (like 50 or 100 miles). The "Featured Beer" is a prominent on your page, which is great as it highlights a specific beer or brewery, but I think it makes more sense to list ALL beers brewed near me, and have the location of the brewery available on a subsequent page if I'm interested, like the page of the specific brewery (which you already do). Another thought: sort all the beers in my area by how high their ratings are. Maybe you could be the Yelp of craft beers? Just my thoughts. I understand the hesitance to buy ads with no clear monetization strategy.